Exactly. The fact that some deity most people believe is behind our creation isn't coming down here and bitch-slapping us for acting so stupid in its name, is enough reason for me to stop believing it's even there. Otherwise I'd just believe he was there but that he was a total asshole.

If everybody could just say "Maybe there is something, maybe there isn't", that would be good enough for me. But there's too many people who'll happily kill to uphold their beliefs for me to want to want to risk balancing on the middle of the fence. I want them to know that when things finally hit rock bottom and they blame the unbelievers for bringing down god's wrath, I'll be one of the ones fighting them tooth and nail.

If everybody could just say "Maybe there is something, maybe there isn't", that would be good enough for me. But there's too many people who'll happily kill to uphold their beliefs for me to want to want to risk balancing on the middle of the fence. I want them to know that when things finally hit rock bottom and they blame the unbelievers for bringing down god's wrath, I'll be one of the ones fighting them tooth and nail.

You can't sit on the fence. I'm not naive to think anything in the world works like that. Even you don't sit on the fence. Look at what you wrote. That's hardly neutral. People have killed for beliefs that have nothing to do with religion. "Him or me," "Communism." "You have a different nose." all have nothing to do with religion and are a lot more petty.

You can't sit on the fence. I'm not naive to think anything in the world works like that. Even you don't sit on the fence. Look at what you wrote. That's hardly neutral. People have killed for beliefs that have nothing to do with religion. "Him or me," "Communism." "You have a different nose." all have nothing to do with religion and are a lot more petty.

I didn't say sit on the fence; that would imply being comfortable and safe there. Balancing would be precarious, tipping one way and the other constantly.

Ever see Stephen King's The Mist? That's exactly the kind of mob mentality I'm waiting to see strike people. And you know there'll be more of the crazy assholes than the sane people when that happens.

I'll point out here that you never bothered to make any distinction between religion and organized religion. In fact you were praising the decline of religion not, that of 'organized religion" and the Pope spoke of 'godlessness" not "unorganized godliness". So you're either changing direction in midstream here or you didn't think through where you were going with this.

In fact yes, I am praising the decline of Christianity as an institution. This is an establishment that persecuted Galileo for simply revealing the truth, then they buried it and finally got around to forgiving him 400 years later. This is the institution that held Western society back through the Dark Ages, launched the misery of the Crusades and burnt, tortured and butchered untold masses in pursuit of its agenda.

To say that that happened way back when isn't good enough; the church has to be accountable for all the atrocities it committed. Hell yes I'd love to see it go on the extinct pile. This doesn't mean Christianity as a faith must go too, it simply means the legacy of wide-scale control of the Holy Roman Empire must fall at some point. Now is as good a time as any.

Actually I have read things though. You simply aren't making logical or valid arguments. You have a string of opinions through out here in this thread that aren't really supported by anything. They aren't even really organized and in the last couple of posts have even become contradictory. As at this point you've gone from suggesting that religion itself is an evil tool for control and oppression to suggesting 'organized religion is wrong'.

That's an opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. Perhaps I didn't explain myself in-depth enough from the getgo, but for the record you appear to be the only one in the thread that didn't 'get it'.

For the record I don't say for a moment we don't need some form of moral code to guide most people, but it needn't be a large organized faith.

Furthermore, you don't 'know' that organized faiths are wrong because they have various doctrinal disputes or worship different gods for that matter. Its intellectually lazy to say "the religions of the world don't all agree so they must all be wrong". That sort of reasoning extends to any argument in which case if everyone participating can't agree everyone is wrong? That's absurd. Furthermore, when dealing with such things only one person need be right. Nor does any person need to be entirely write, as undoubtedly there are different intrepretations of whatever is 'right'.

I do know they're wrong. I said I was referring to the metaphysics that religions promote; as Dr. Carl Sagan put it, it's where religion gets into trouble, when it pretends to know something about science.

Most faiths have incompatible beliefs here, and most believe they are correct, which proves them all in error. If that isn't enough, science has largely buried these mythologies. There's no point in raising your children to believe the earth is flat, women were created from magically from the rib of man, or that the planet is only 6,000 years old when it's been irrefutably proven otherwise.

That's the stuff that bugs the crap out of me. Instead of saying, "Wow, how about that? Let's figure out how our religion fits into these scientific facts", most people just flat-out thump the bible as if it's bending over and asking to be cornholed, making asses of themselves and expect that to disprove what science just proved.

Or any god for that matter (Yes I'm a Christian and I'm allowed to believe other gods exist.) but everyone I've ever met, I'm not being facetious, has always tried to prove me wrong.

Most people, I assume, haul out the First Commandment.

This is what I was trying to get at with interpretations first. Quite literally, it doesn't say you can't worship other gods. It just says that you can't put any other god first in your devotions first. Most people, that I know anyway, look at it as stating that El (or Yahweh or God or the Lord whatever you want to call him) is the only one you can ever worship.

This is what I was trying to get at with interpretations first. Quite literally, it doesn't say you can't worship other gods. It just says that you can't put any other god first in your devotions first. Most people, that I know anyway, look at it as stating that El (or Yahweh or God or the Lord whatever you want to call him) is the only one you can ever worship.

Oh you can't worship other gods, that's pretty clear. I am the Lord thy God, thall shalt have no other gods before me. Meaning before as in within his vision. It's very monotheistic by very I mean absolutely. But it doesn't confirm or deny the presence of other gods.

But it's just like they say there are no demons. Well I'm one to believe if Jesus runs into one.

That's the stuff that bugs the crap out of me. Instead of saying, "Wow, how about that? Let's figure out how our religion fits into these scientific facts", most people just flat-out thump the bible as if it's bending over and asking to be cornholed, making asses of themselves and expect that to disprove what science just proved.

I really find myself quoting the late Dr. Carl Sagan time and again, he's one of a handful of people I really admired and respected growing up. He really says it far better than I can, so I'm compelled to repost this one-

Or perhaps god's creation as it's been written down somehow fits into what we're actually seeing out there. The notion that 'let there be light' might be the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is a compelling one, besides any other similarities.

Or perhaps god's creation as it's been written down somehow fits into what we're actually seeing out there. The notion that 'let there be light' might be the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is a compelling one, besides any other similarities.

Or when it's said "Let there be light." boom big bang. Then as the matter started to separate into gas and stars, suns and such. "And God separated the light from the dark, and called the light day and the dark night." If you look at the Creation theory and the Big Bang theory they're shockingly parallel.

Unlike Overlord, I do not take it as a personal agenda to "open" the eyes of the religious. I don't believe that those who are religiously inclined have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt there is some higher being, and i don't believe that the atheist have proven it either. SImply because a little issue of "god created everything..including the science that refutes him. God is incomprehensible to mortal minds so we often attribute aspects, morals, or other human things to him so that he can be more comprehensible (i use him, if there is a supreme being it could be him , her, they, it, who knows..) to our minds" argument. *shrugs* I don't think anyne will ever be able to prove it from etiher side simply because of the faith that religious people have.

that being said. The reason why I don't think I have any right to try and take religion away from anyone, I don't have any right to sway people..is because religion is a source of peace and comfort to most people...not the loud mouth gonna get all the attention idiots out here giving their religion a bad name. Who am I to try and steal that from them?

We all hate it when religious people "preach" to us, and try to "convert" us..but I find it amusing that those who rally and hollar about this do the sam ething..try to convert religious people to aethism...its all the same thing.

*shrugs* I let religious people ahve their faith..if that is what helps them through this world, then its a good thing. Its only bad when bad PEOPLE use it as a tool.

I will state somethng here from my own family I have two relatives in ministry.

One is a serious Bible-literalist that when he has anything to make a decision on he prays and fasts, then randomly opens the Bible his eyes cloes and picks a passage and uses that literal reading to decide what God wants him to do. Really. And of course he is big on Creationism and home schools his children with his wife submissive to his wishes as the head of the house.

The other runs a store front church, feeds the poor and clothes the needy at a assistance shelter attached to it and is fighting with the authorities over the legality of him handing out a sandwich, coffee and maybe in season some fruit to homless people in the park. And he is also fairly educated and feels Creation is true but rightly a mystery of God he can find out about in heaven but assumes the Bible account is correct, Evolution in mans use of the physical evidence and a justified science however.

Needless to say I think the first is a nutball and the other at least follows Christs example I never assumed by my reading of the texts that Jesus wanted stupid followers blind to reason, just to also have faith in God, isnt it true many of the greatest scientific men and women were also religious.

As for the past of the Catholic Church like I said in some cases the primitives had it coming like the Aztecs, didn't you ever think God wanted the Spanish to crust these people as part of His divine wrath. He did smite Egypt after all and often used the servants on Earth to commit genocides on people that offended Him if you actually take the Bible on face value in the Old Testament accounts. So vengeful justice and wrath seems to be a viable thing for God to have done to the Aztecs for example.

Most faiths have incompatible beliefs here, and most believe they are correct, which proves them all in error.

So the different religions have to agree for them to be right? What logic is that? Not very good logic if differing religions like.. Christianity,druidism, Hinduism, Islam, have to agree for them to be taken a truth..

So the different religions have to agree for them to be right? What logic is that? Not very good logic if differing religions like.. Christianity,druidism, Hinduism, Islam, have to agree for them to be taken a truth..

Or when it's said "Let there be light." boom big bang. Then as the matter started to separate into gas and stars, suns and such. "And God separated the light from the dark, and called the light day and the dark night." If you look at the Creation theory and the Big Bang theory they're shockingly parallel.

There's a lot of ways they can be paralleled for sure. Now, the obvious one is what you just mentioned; let there be light is the Big Bang. However, the way modern physics is explaining the Big Bang, it really wasn't a bang at all, not an explosion but rather an unfolding of space from a singularity that then rushed headlong through an Inflationary period. It was incredibly hot and dense and wild with energy, but being as atomic particles did not yet exist as we know them; it was simply too hot for them to exist, and this included photons, light wasn't really the issue.

Later on some 300,000+ years in the era of the CMB, then the universe became transparent for all those first generation stars and nebula to throw their light across the universe, and by all accounts those first stars were massive things that burnt themselves out in millions of years, perhaps even thousands. The earliest transparent universe would have been too chaotic, crowded and teeming with radiation and energy for anything to ever evolve or survive to see it, at least nothing with consciousness to appreciate its splendor, but it must have been blinding and shocking to behold.